


At the Crossroads

by Corilyn_Winchester



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Clint Barton, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Deaf Character, Deaf Clint Barton, Gen, Major Character Injury, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Suicide Attempt, Tony Stark Has A Heart, army clint, someone probably has PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 15:47:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7514128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corilyn_Winchester/pseuds/Corilyn_Winchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt fill for the 23 emotions challenge:</p>
<p>Clint Barton is an Army sniper on loan to SHIELD most of the time, he has to be ready to go back to the uniform at any moment, get pulled from any mission to go wherever the government wants him.<br/>That is, until he goes and gets himself hurt in such a way he's useless to the US military.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At the Crossroads

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [23emotions](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/23emotions) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Onism- the awareness of how little the world is you'll experience.
> 
> It takes a bit to get to the prompt word, but I promise it makes its appearance.

onism

  1. the frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time, which is like standing in front of the departures screen at an airport, flickering over with strange place names like other people’s passwords, each representing one more thing you’ll never get to see before you die—and all because, as the arrow on the map helpfully points out, you are here.



 

+&+&+

 

   Budapest changes things. Little things, subtle things. It completes Strike team Delta's transition from the military side of SHIELD to the full Agency side. It slows them down. Makes them realize their humanity, their weaknesses.

     The deadly Russian almost becomes a casualty, bleeding out onto the dirty wood floor of the all called 'safe-house'. Her partner is unconscious on the floor not far away, almost touching her. He'd sacrificed himself, his career, for her. Using his hands to protect her ears, he'd taken the full brunt of the sonic arrow he'd detonated to save their lives. Extraction is five minutes out.

 

+&+&+

 

          She wakes up three days later, her partner contorted into a plastic chair close to the foot of the hospital bed. She's groggy, the fuzz of pain killers clouding her senses.

          "Hey, welcome back." Their handlers voice sounds from the other side of the room. She may be inebriated, but it still worries her that the archer doesn't even shift when the words are spoken.

          "He okay?" It's rough, her throat dry and scratchy. There's a straw at her mouth suddenly, cool water helping to strengthen her voice.

          "No." It's not what she's expecting. "He might be, eventually. But right now, no. And neither are you." Clint still hasn't so much as twitched.

          "What happened?" Her right leg feels heavy, and she remembers the bullet ripping into her thigh.

          "You got shot. He took out the guys that were going to kill you before extraction got there. That was three days ago." Her eyes stay on her unmoving partner. Phil let's out a heavy sigh. "There's already talk about his discharge."

         "He doesn't look hurt that bad though. Is he in trouble?" His last official reprimand had been a year before, when he'd brought her in.

         "No, he's not facing court martial." Coulson fiddles around on a table for a second. "Here." It's a medical scan. Grey scale and messy, Natasha doesn't know enough to identify the body part, let alone the damage.

          "What-" Phil interrupts her.

          "The minimum safe distance for a sonic device without any form of ear protection is 25 feet. At 15 feet, hearing loss is inevitable. At 10 feet, with no protection, damage occurs on a molecular level, causing tiny fractures in bones and cartilage. At 5 feet, death is possible but rare. At 2 feet, a test has never been conducted." She's starting to get a mental picture of it. "The scan...that should be 3 separate bones. There's other damage too."

        "He's deaf." She says it as a statement. Processing it slowly on her tongue.

         "DOD is giving him three months, the scans say it's permanent, but...three months to be...hearing ...again." Clint is still asleep, knees tucked up, chin down, eyes pinched in pain even in sleep. "Once the discharge goes through, Fury promised me a position for him here."

           "What has to happen for him to go into the field again?" She lost her partner.

      "We'll know more later. For now, worry about you." Coulson reaches over and taps the sleeping sniper lightly. There's a large flinch and a knife appears from no where. "Clint, it's just me." His eyes scrunch in confusion, then close for a few seconds as he let's out a hard breath.

       "Fuck." It's almost whispered. Barely focused eyes meet Natasha's, a hint of a smile. "Hey Nat."

        "Hey." She doesn't want to say much, to frustrate him even more when he's unable to understand her.

         "You okay?" It's quiet, like he's afraid to talk.

         "I'm fine. Leg hurts, but...whatever." He nods, then groans, pressing his palms into his eyes.

         "Good." It's pained. "Give me a second. Forgot not to move my head." She looks to her handler, question evident on her face.

         "Balance is shot. He should still be in a bed himself, but the idiot wanted to be here when you woke up."

\--------

         The next three weeks are a nightmare. Clint's balance is slow to return , and Natasha pisses off her physical therapist every time they meet. It takes a week before he can cross a room without nearly vomiting, or grabbing a wall for support. She knocks a wayward junior agent out with one of her crutches when they say something about Clint (they call him a useless army boy).

         Week three is the all or nothing week. Clint's balance is still off, but he's got an appointment with a non shield doc for the army. Phil drives him, since vertigo and interstates don't sound like a good combination. The result is the same.

        It isn't just that he damaged his hearing. He destroyed his ears. No residual hearing. Clint isn't just a little deaf. He's completely, utterly, without sound. Theoretically, you could fire a 357 revolver right next to him and he'd feel the vibration but not the sound. The problem is that his eardrums are gone, and the sound conduction bones are obliterated. The tiny hair cells that make noise as people know it, those are almost all gone or damaged too. He's lucky to be alive, lucky that it only shattered his ears and not his skull.

         At week 4 there's hope. His eardrums are healing, slowly, but with the help of some skin patching, they are.

         At week 6 Natasha is back training (under strict orders not to over do it). And Clint gets to press the button on the hearing test. There's something. He hears one of the tones, then another. They decide its time to attempt hearing aids, since the bone pieces have been removed and his eardrums are sturdy enough.

        At week 8 Natasha is cleared for milk run missions. Clint puts his fist through a mirror and ends up with 16 stitches. He's still barely talking, and when he does it's quieter than appropriate. He's depressed, Nat sees it, Phil sees it. Medical tries to medicate him for it. He refuses. Week 8 is also the week Clint admits that even with the bulky hearing aids (the most amplification they could get) he still can't hear anything quieter than a door slamming. Natasha does not let him see her cry (but she does).

          At week 10 Natasha is cleared. Clint is not.

 

         At three months, Clinton Francis Barton receives a purple heart and his discharge papers. He has hearing aids on, just so he isn't claustrophobic from the silence (it's gotten to where he can hear noises, not words, but noises when he has them on).

\------

         Three weeks and one suicide attempt later, Clint agrees to choclear implant surgery. They tell him it won't be like hearing again, but it will be sound. That's all he cares about.

        "There's a position open for you in analysis, there always will be." Fury says it in full view of his best sniper, so he can read his lips better. Barton nods, and a few hours later he wakes up with the right side of his head shaved and loopy from the anesthesia.

 

         When they go to turn it on, nothing happens. The implant failed. They throw out words like nerve damage and possibly temporary and re-implantation. All Clint can think is that this is his new reality, that this, muffled clangs and bangs, is his life. All Natasha can think is that she lost her partner. All Phil Coulson wants to do is fix it. He wants (needs) his team back. So when Clint gets back to his bunk there is a pile of books and videos on American Sign Language. He gives it a try.

 

           Three months after the first implant surgery, and seven months after he detonated a sonic arrow head at a distance of less than 2 feet, the second implant is activated, and it works.

 

         "Hey, how's it going?" She signs as she speaks, making it easier for him to follow.

         "Just noises, but once my brain gets used to processing sounds out of the electrical set up, it'll get better." He signs too, all the time now, Nat and Clint and Phil, they all sign (maybe not fluently but they'll get there).

         "That's fantastic. How's your analyst training going?" He was almost through the program, keeping his level 5 security clearance and re-training to a desk job.

         "Fine. They want me to help on the range this week." Speaking out loud had become something Clint dreaded, not being able to hear himself to judge his volume. Being able to recognize even half of his own syllables helps exponentially.

         Exactly one year after his discharge from the army, Clint takes the field asset assessment test part 1. Three days later, he is reassigned as the first choice partner of Natasha Romanov.

 

         "This calls for celebration." Phil gets a cake, Natasha brings Vodka, and Clint gets his badge back.

 

         18 months after Budapest, Strike team delta gets its first long term assignment as a fully SHIELD STRIKE team. With Hawkeye no longer tied to the US government, and having to be able to deploy at any time, they can take missions they couldn't before.

 

         "You sure you okay to do this?" It'll be the first time since the accident that Clint has to be on comms by himself without Natasha or Phil to interpret what he misses.

           "Should be. I've been getting better at recognizing the words." That was the hardest part, Hawkeye could hear partially with the receiver in place (slightly modified so it was smaller and had better quality), but he still couldn't understand noise like he used to. Voices made sense most of the time, words understood to an extent, but not perfectly. It's been 5 months since he got his asset status back, a little less than a year since the working implant was activated. His audiologist says he should be adjusted by now, and to a level, he is. It's just....still weird to wake up and have to consciously remember to clip on the receiver onto the left side of his head to do something as natural as hear.

         "Good. You're my eyes, I can't be your ears this time." Natasha looks more nervous than him.

           "I know. It'll be fine Nat, last time we did a percentage test on the comms I was at almost 80%, that's almost as good as before." It was true, linked into his communicator, his speech recognition was at the highest of any environment without the convenience of lip reading.

           "Worst case, we switch to Morse code."

 

             They don't have to. The mission goes well, the mark gives the information and gets a bullet between the eyes. On the transport back the two agents sign, partly because it's more private, and mostly because they've realized that more than 24 hours straight with the receiver in place gives Clint a migraine the size of Tokyo. He's also more comfortable talking with his hands rather than his voice now, mostly because there's less chance of him missing words. Natasha wouldn't say she understands it, but she has accepted it, and was a huge part in his recovery and decision to try and re-qualify for field work.

 

           2 years after Budapest, STRIKE delta uses its very specific profile to take down a human trafficking ring in the California bay area. They like people they can control easier, people who are less likely to fight back. They like disabled people. SHIELD likes this possible mission. So they approach on it, and delta says why the hell not. A few weeks of speech coaching, to make Clint mispronounce specific sounds, so that he sounds as deaf as he is, and they're ready to go. If questions about his obviously not natural signing, well he hasn't had anyone to practice with in years.

 

         No one does. A good dye job and some earrings paired with a punk wardrobe change make the mid twenties ex-army sniper look like a barely legal drinking age target.

They fall for it, the ring sees him, sets a tail on him, 'convinces' the poor deaf grocery store employee that he can get him money if he agrees to this. So, they shove him in a shipping container and he activates the tracker hidden in his receiver and an hour later SHIELD is busting through the doors and 'rescuing' him and the 10 other people in the container. Clint is crouched in the corner of the container, hands flying as he calms down a girl who can't be more than 17, her own hands repeating back some of what he's saying to her and Natasha watches, taps the ground near him so he knows she's there.

             "Kayla, this is my friend, she signs too okay?" He's looking at the girl, still signing, and she nods, she looks nervous but not terrified and Natasha quickly spells her name and the girl nods at her. "We're going to help you." He turns to Nat and stills his hands. "She was having a panic attack, deaf non-verbal. She's an orphan, and the only other person…person like me in the container." He still hates admitting to it, still finds it hard to verbalize that yes, he is not the same person he was before Budapest. And that’s the thing that changed. Not that Clint can't hear without the help of technology, not that he isn't army anymore. The little thing that changed in Budapest is that he isn't the cocky confident sniper he once was, he's careful, almost anxious. Self conscious in a way that, yes he always has been, but not he can't hide it as well. That's what the sonic arrow did to him, not just ruin his ears, it damaged him so much worse than that. So far past the physical effects. But he is getting better, has been for nearly a year and half now, after he fought through the severe bought of depression that the injury sent him into.

 

           Natasha would say that by the time Loki shows up, Clint is Clint again, even if it is a new kind of Clint. He is a little bit different, but who wouldn't be? She has her partner back back, not just a twitchy facsimile of him hiding in the meat suit of her bestfriend.

             And Loki…Loki sucks. Clint gets stuck in a never-ending loop of guilt, and its as bad as it was 3 years ago, and she's worried she'll lose him. Really worried, like…keeping an eye on him and trying not to leave him with any weapons worried. But, he makes it. Natasha thinks the turning point is when she walks into the kitchen of the tower (because yes, they did move in since the carrier is just a really bad place for him to be right now). He's sitting at the island, coffee mug to his left and the receiver in his fingers, the smaller unit that he has now, that since he grew his hair out just a bit is nearly invisible unless you know to look. She flashes the lights twice and he gives her a little wave, acknowledging that he knows its her.

           "You know, they don't know." He's talking about the team, even after nearly a month of living in the tower they don't know. "None of them, just you. And…that's okay you know?" She'll let him say what he needs to say, its usually so hard to get him to talk first. "But he…he knew. Loki-"He stutters on the name. "Knew. He knew. And he said it was a fatal human flaw. And...and he fixed it, until I disobeyed him." He still hasn't looked up. "Nat…I almost forgot, you know? I almost forgot what your voice sounds like…what the carrier sounds like. I almost forgot, and that was okay! It was okay that I forgot and…then he made me remember and I heard the screams of the people I killed. I heard Hill shouting at me stop, heard the recoil of my pistol. God…I tried to kill Hill! I shot Fury. He made me hear what you said and then, when I failed to help him, he took it away. And you know what? I wanted to obey him, I wanted to, and I know it was magic and things we don't have the capacity to understand, but I wanted to. And that makes it so much worse. I wanted to help him for the goddamned selfish reason of fucking hearing. What does that say about me? What does that say? That I wanted him to like my obedience so I could…fuck. So I could understand what people were saying _as I killed them_." His voice breaks and the receiver skitters across the counter as he slides it away. "It would have been less horrible if I didn't want it." She feels a part of herself break as he admits it all. But, damn is she happy he finally is talking, maybe this is his breaking point from this, maybe he'll get better from here. "What the fuck does that say about me?!"

             "Clint…" She grabs the receiver and hands it to him, knowing her hands will never be able to convey what she needs to say in the way she needs to say it. She waits for him to put it in place before speaking. "You do not need to blame yourself for that. You're right, its monsters and magic and our stupid little human brains can't deal with that. But you know what? You didn't kill those people, Loki did. Loki made you fire at Hill and Fury. He made you fight me. And you were fighting back, no matter what you think. You know that at 100% you can take me out, and you had at least 3 opportunities to do so on the carrier, and yet, you let it get a hand to hand fight, when I can tell from the bruises I had, you weren't trying as hard as you could. You pushed it away until it got to a point where we are closer to equal. Its crazy and you aren't. And I know about all the people you've talked to about your hearing, how you lost it, how everyone keeps telling you that you should have accepted it a long time ago. But, that’s not something that you choose to do. Think about it this way, say a guy lost his sight, he's got two kids, a wife, a dog the whole nine yards, but he'll never see them again. And then, someone comes along the way, and tells him to kill his wife to be able to see his kids grow up. Or maybe its some other horrible deed and its against all his morals, maybe he tells him to drop a vial of chemical agent down a drain, so that the water system is affected. And he gives him just enough, just a flash of pictures, of what's going on around him. Just enough for him to want more. Yes, he would feel horrible about even thinking about doing the deed, but he would consider it. Now, what if the person who comes and tells him he could give him his sight back has the kids hidden somewhere, and if he kills the wife he gets his kids and his sight back? He'd think about it a little more wouldn't he?" Clint nods, he knows where she's going with this. "So what makes it any different when it’s a freaking Norse god strangling your brain and telling you that if you just do this, you just release the string, you could not only release the pressure building in your brain, but you could have back what you lost? What's the difference between telling the mercenary turned solider turned contracted assassin that if he puts a little more blood on the ground he'll be whole again? Because it was magic, and it wasn't your fault, and he took your brain and he made you want what he had to give, because you wanted it all along, and he used that against you."

           "Everyone says that…it’s a part of me you know? And then he came along and he made it not. And I don't know…I don't know if I'll ever be able to accept that." She's known for a while that there was something else going one with this specific guilt trip, and nows its out in the open.

           "So, we'll work on it together. Like we did before." She signs it this time, just a little extra nudge at the point of 'you are not alone in this'.

           "Okay." Two letters, flicked by one hand. They'll figure it out.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

           It has always been his decision whether to tell people or not, and Natasha is proud of him when he decides to tell the rest of the team. It’s the fastest he's trusted anyone enough to straight up tell them, even when people guessed it way before he told them.

           "Hey, Birdbrain, you want some of this?" He doesn't even move, has no reaction to Tony's question. "Barton?" He turns, just to make sure that the other Avenger is still there. "Legolas? Hello?" He reaches out to tap the man (hey everyone zones out every now and then) and is rewarded by a coffee mug swinging at his face, luck have it, its empty and also plastic so it doesn't hurt that bad when it smashes into his forearm. "Hey!"

             "Sorry. Shouldn't sneak up on people like that Tony." Clint honestly feels a little bad about the coffee cup cracking into the inventors arm, but not enough to do something about it.

             "Whatever, do you want food?" At the word food Barton seems to perk up, and nods an answer.

               "Sure. But uh…if you ever can't my attention by calling my name just flash the lights or knock on the nearest surface that I'm touching." He shrugs, runs his fingers through his hair.

               "You zone out a lot?" If it’s a thing then it’s a thing.

                 "No uh, I…I'm deaf and taping on my shoulder is probably the fastest way to end up with a broken nose." Tony tilts his head at the admission. "Yeah…I can't hear. Almost at all."

               "I never would have guessed." He pauses, sets down the spatula still held in his right hand, and repeats his statement with his hands, which to Clint is something he obviously hasn't done in a while. The dialect is different, but its close enough that the message is clear. "I haven't signed in a while." His hands pause, but he can eventually find the words and Clint smiles, thinking about how Tony is the fourth person to ever do that just to try and make it easier on him.

                 "Its okay. And, I can tell what your saying but I appreciate the effort, a lot. I um, I've got an implant that works pretty well, so…I mean yeah, I sign and it makes things hella easier, but…its not…necessary." He's actually surprised at how easy it is to talk about it this time. Like he somehow knew that this wouldn't make Tony, Iron Man, think any less of him.

                     "If it helps, then I'll refresh myself. JARVIS, place an order for light and vibration alarms, can't exclude someone from a fire drill right? Would I be able to get a scan of your implant, so I can maybe improve the system?" He's getting more of what Tony is saying rather than what he's attempting to sign, but the effort is there all the same.

           "Yeah, sure. I uh, I've got a spare receiver you can mess around with if its easier." Clint points over Tony's shoulder at the now smoking pan. "Uh, you were cooking."

           "Shit." One motion and it conveys the meaning very well.

  

 

   A week later and Clint is sitting in the lab on a table, and Bruce is telling him that the inactive implant he's got on the right side might actually be salvageable.

     "So…you might be able to fix me?" It's been a long time since he's hopped that, since he thought that maybe the technology in his head might work as it was designed to, and not only halfway.

       "Not entirely obviously. You know that. But we might be able to put a program map into the system and get it to work, and with the new receivers we're putting together…it might be better than how it is now." Clint nods…he knows that its impossible to actually fix him, but anything that could make it better, he'll try it. Especially if its for the left side, since you can't really break it any worse than they already did.

         "But, you can at least make the one that work, do its job better? Because yeah, I can understand people and I can use a phone better than I should be able to, but it cuts out a lot. Works when it wants to and not when it doesn't." Even Nat didn't know that his implant liked to shut off whenever it decided to.

         "It'll at least be more reliable if not better all around." That’s Tony, and he's gotten better at ASL since that afternoon in the kitchen.

 

\---------------------------------------------------

 

Three months later there's a terrorist attack in the middle east and Tony finds Clint starring at the news feed, fists clenched at his sides and obviously angry.

           "I'd be there." He sounds upset. "In 72 hours I'd be there. Right now, or maybe a few hours ago, I'd be getting a call and I'd be there in 3 days." He knows he would be, SHIELD would be throwing him back in ACU's and he'd be deployed in no time at all. "If I hadn't…Budapest. If I hadn't detonated that freaking arrow head, I'd be there, helping. Instead of here, watching and not able to do anything. Because of ONE FREAKING choice." He looks over at Tony, and if he looks close enough he can see a tear in his eye. "Don't ever think I regret saving her life, but…if I'd been where I was supposed to be that night…I'd have been able to take out the people trying to kill her, without…taking myself out in the process. I'd be there. Doing something, but because of…one fucking decision…I can't be. Its like….why aren't there more iterations of this story you know? Why can't I just go back, and fucking…god I don't even know what I would do. Because I'd still try and save her."

           "Romanoff. That's who you saved." Clint nods.

           "Yeah. I saved her, but…I should have done it a different way. I…should have been on the roof, seen the guys coming up the steps, but…she was hurt, and…I don't know what made me go into the building, I was supposed to stay on the roof, but she was hurt and I went in to help her, and now…instead of being there-" He points at the screen. "I'm here, and I can't help thinking about what would be different, who's son or daughter would get to go home at the end of their 6 months, because it was me instead of them that got sent on the scout mission, or in the convoy. And I know I'm not that important, but I'm a body, and the army sure does love those. Especially bodies with aim. What 19 year old kid would get to stay home because I filled the spot they were slotted for? God, its so frustrating. I did this to myself and now I can't be. Where. I. Need.To.Be. All because of a person that I owe my life to multiple times over, and I would never change the outcome of that day. I just wish I could change how it happened."

           "Onism." Its an odd word and Clint tilts his head at it, Tony fingerspelling it almost immediately. " Its…frustration at only being able to be one place at a time. Annoyance at all the places you'll never see. Like a map, telling you where you stand and outlining all the steps you'll never take. It's…an emotion."

           "Onism. Yeah…fitting, stupid word for a stupid emotion felt by a stupid guy who makes stupid decisions." Clint nods, runs a hand over his face, nearly knocks one of the two receivers he has now off his head.

           "You aren't stupid. And, I'm assuming, in the split second you detonated that arrow head, you thought it was the only answer to the question in front of you. And you paid a hell of a price, but…you also need to see it this way, if you hadn't done what you did, if you'd stayed on the roof, if you hadn't gone inside to help Natasha, you would be there, but you also wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be a superhero, little kids wouldn't dress up as you for Halloween, you'd still only have her, not multiple friends. And fate, it’s a funny, fickle creature, so who's to say a different thing wouldn't have happened? Maybe you would be over there, or you would have been years ago, or maybe instead of getting your ears destroyed you'd have died. Or maybe, you'd be over there now, and an IED would do what happened all that time ago. Maybe, fate had it, you were always supposed to lose your hearing."

             "Fun fact, I knew what I was doing…I knew what would happen. And I didn't care. I knew…before then, what it was like to be how I am now. When I was little…I had a pretty bad head injury, and for a little while, we didn't know if my hearing would come back. And it did, and I forgot all about it. Forgot what it was like to be so damn confused all the time. But I knew it would happen, and…I think that's why I had such a problem accepting it, why it was so damn hard for me to get past it. Because it was my worst fear, and it was back in my face." Tony nods in understanding. "Thank you. For letting me rant…and you know, giving it a name."

               "No problem, you ever need to talk, I'm good for it."

The end


End file.
